The term ‘tourism’ makes the endeavour sound a bit trivial. I would preserve traditional ways of life because I believe it’s important for us to understand human history and where we come from.
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Originally Posted by Bookpossum
I think there is an argument for subsidising industries, not just as stage-dressing or as a theme park, but because it gives decent honest work to people who would otherwise not have it. And that of course is very true of the UK, which now has had several generations of people in the north who have no work.
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At least in North America, huge subsidies, structured to be largely invisible, go directly to big industry without benefiting regular people.
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Originally Posted by issybird
. ...although there's also the argument that it's important to maintain farms as a hedge against the unknown future. One thinks of Britain in WWII, for example, when it couldn't feed itself, or Germany at the end of the Great War when a starving population helped tipped the balance - and Germany learned from that for the next war.
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I think there’s a very strong argument for this. We came from very humble circumstances. My parents said few people in the Maritimes realized they were in the midst of the Great Depression, because not much had changed. But everyone had small gardens and ate quite well on what they grew and preserved. Not to minimize the overwhelming impact of the Depression, but just to echo the importance of self reliance.
Decades later, gardening here is experiencing a revival, because many families are struggling to give their children fresh fruit and vegetables. We have community gardens in city parks, vacant lots, etc. Given what is happening to the environment, carbon footprint & costs of transportation etc, these are important skills to maintain.
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Originally Posted by CRussel
There are two factors that, to me, justify subsidizing Herdwick sheep that have nothing whatsoever to do with tourism.
The first is the important genes that the Herdies breed back into the broader sheep population as a whole. ...
The second, and perhaps most important in some ways, is the very real need to maintain biodiversity in a time of climate change. By protecting heritage breeds of animals, and heritage varieties of plants, we improve the chances for all varieties and breeds in a rapidly changing environment. Oh, and not insignificantly (close your eyes, Catlady), we improve the taste of the food we eat!
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Excellent points. There’s no comparison in flavour between real fruit and vegetables, and tasteless stuff, bred primarily not to bruise, which is picked too soon, entombed in plastic and shipped thousands of miles.
Despite my sympathy for the ‘eat local’ movement though, I’m pretty spoiled & hypocritical. I hate to start the day without coffee imported from South America and tropical bananas on cereal
